


founding rome

by ClassyFangirl



Category: Bloodline (TV 2015)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Other, Slurs, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClassyFangirl/pseuds/ClassyFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life would be a whole lot easier if they could hate each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	founding rome

**Author's Note:**

> (i'm gonna write Bloodline fic until everyone watches this show and suffers with me)

They don’t know how to hate each other, is the thing. It’d be a lot easier if they did.

-

 

The first Christmas after Sarah dies, they all dress in their good church clothes and go to Christmas Eve service. Father Charles makes reference to the family- _the good Rayburn family_ -and there is a moment of silence for Sarah. They don’t _say_ it’s for her, but it is, and Sally takes Robert’s shaking hand in hers.

Danny tears his tie off when they get home and vomits in the bushes, then disappears off to the O’Bannon house while Sally puts Meg to bed. Robert goes down to the office and doesn’t come out until the kids are all asleep.

Meg asks if Santa is gonna bring anything for Sarah, “even though she’s-” but she doesn’t finish the question because Kevin snaps at her that she’s too old to still believe in Santa. Sally doesn’t yell, but her voice gets steely when she tells Kevin to go to bed, too.

John turns on _White Christmas_ for his mother’s sake and then retreats to the bedroom. He pretends Kevin isn’t crying.

Nobody asks Danny how he got a black eye when he shows up back at home the next day, and nobody mentions Robert’s bruised knuckles. Danny shows Meg how to play Super Mario Brothers and everybody playfully teases that Kevin’s gonna grow up to be a better singer than Robert, even.

 

-

 

Meg doesn’t have a lot of girl friends growing up, but that’s fine. She’s “one of the boys” and proud of it. Sally and Robert don’t let her roughhouse with her brothers as much but Danny teaches her how to throw a punch, John teaches her where to kick to get even heavy, chubby Kevin off of her.

Chelsea O’Bannon teaches her how to put make-up on. Meg doesn’t like Chelsea, really, and the feeling is mutual, but Meg is eleven and wants Joey Alvarez to kiss her. Chelsea wears lots of heavy drugstore eyeshadow and punches just as well as Meg does, and boys kiss _her_ all the time.

Meg comes home that day wearing the make-up Chelsea put on her, and Sally sighs, “Oh, _sweetheart,_ ” while she scrubs it off her face. John’s new girlfriend, Diana, gives her a tube of light pink lipgloss the next day.

 

-

One summer day when Kevin is twenty-three, he mentions, while shoving a forkful of dinner into his mouth so maybe nobody will hear him, that Mrs. Feeney at the rec center asked him to be in their production of _Guys and Dolls_ , because she thinks he has a nice voice.

Danny is home, briefly- he’ll be gone again in two weeks and nobody will talk about it; Danny laughs and says, “Sure, faggot.”

Sally is about to reprimand him for saying the word in front of John’s new baby, even though Ben is only a few months old, but Meg is quicker, enlightened by her time way up north in Tallahassee, and says, “Danny, you can’t say that stuff! It’s _oppressive._ ” Danny holds his hands up in mock surrender and Meg turns to Kevin and tells him she thinks he’d be a great actor.

Kevin is burning bright red and says, “Yeah, well, I already told her no,” which is a lie, he said he’d think about it. “I’m too busy, I’m gonna get promoted at the boatyard any day now, y’know.”

The subject gets changed to work pretty quickly after that, and they get distracted by a story from John about how Mrs. O’Bannon called the cops on Eric because she thought he stole her lottery tickets.

Meg tries to talk to Kevin about the incident later that night, but he just chugs the remnants of his warm beer and says, “What, I don’t care, it was stupid anyway. ‘Sides, even if I did wanna do the stupid play, why would I care what _Danny_ thinks?”

Mrs. Widmark introduces him to Belle four days later, so it all works out, really.

 

-

Danny is staying at John’s house, a few months before he tries his hand at cooking school. It’s late and he’s slicing peppers for tomorrow’s pasta because he can’t sleep, and thirteen-year-old Janey walks into the kitchen and sits down near him.

He raises an eyebrow at her, but she doesn’t say a word, so Danny huffs out a laugh and keeps chopping vegetables. He’s moved on to the garlic when Janey finally asks, “What’s the worst nightmare you ever had?”

“You have a bad dream, li’l one?”

Janey just looks at him with big, too-serious eyes. She looks like her father. She looks like Sarah. Bile rises in Danny’s throat, so he coughs and shrugs.

“Geez, I dunno. That’s a pretty big question. Worst nightmare I ever had…” He’s not gonna tell her the truth, because he’s not a fucking monster and believe it or not, he actually knows how to talk to children. “Had this one with clowns one time.”

Janey giggles, muffled by the palm of her hand. “Clowns aren’t really scary.”

“What! ‘Course they are, you ever seen a clown? You watched Batman, right, you saw that Joker fucker. Uh.” He coughs again and smirks at Janey’s laugh, the delight at hearing a grown-up break the cussing taboo. “Well, you know what I mean. C’mon, clowns are plenty scary.”

“I _guess._ ” She shrugs and drums her sun-browned fingers on the table. “I had a dream about drowning.”

Danny doesn’t freeze up, he just whistles low and says, “Well, you got nothin’ to worry about there. You swim like a fish, you’re never gonna drown.”

“I know that! But it was…” Janey doesn’t finish her sentence. She just keeps watching Danny chop vegetables until her head slowly drops to the tabletop, fast asleep again.

Danny picks her up and carries her back to bed. “You got nothin’ to worry about,” he repeats. “Your daddy won’t ever let you drown.”

He doesn’t see John watching from the hallway, doesn’t see John’s tiny smile.

 

-

Life would be a whole lot easier if they could hate each other.

 


End file.
